


Crystal Clear

by MayumiSato



Series: Omegaverse Jewels: A series of different stories with different combinations of omegaverse [3]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: A bit of violence because this is a murder mistery, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Also some references to sexual stuff, M/M, Victorian murder mistery with werewolves, Yep. Prepare for the ride.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 15:59:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17707295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayumiSato/pseuds/MayumiSato
Summary: Summary: In England, 1848, Arthur Kirkland is hired to solve a case in which a werewolf is being accused of murdering a human. This case is particularly complicated since humans don’t understand the omegaverse dynamics of werewolves and are wary of them as a species. Luckily, Arthur is an omega werewolf determined to bring justice to his people, no matter how persecuted they are. However, even strong-willed and intelligent Arthur, will be shaken up by something about this particular case.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ixiepixie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixiepixie/gifts).



What is a monster to a human? This is a term that can have two definitions that don’t necessarily intersect. Someone who does horrible things can be called a "monster" but it's not just actions that make someone a monster. A monster is also a term used by humans to describe creatures they don’t fully understand and, on account of that, end up fearing. In short, if you are a human, you need to make serious mistakes to become a monster. If you aren’t human, you can be a monster simply by existing.

I, Arthur Kirkland, would fit into the second definition of what humans would call a monster. A werewolf, to be precise. When I was younger, that's all I was to them. Over time, I became known as a private detective. Therefore, I was no longer the “werewolf”. I was the “werewolf private detective”.

I helped the police in many cases because I had an excellent nose for things. Literally and metaphorically. Initially, they hesitated to work with a werewolf, but they soon saw that there was nothing to lose in accepting my help. After all, I wasn’t screaming at everyone on the street, ‘Hey, I'm a werewolf and the police can’t do their job without me! Bark, bark, you damn fools’. When I proved I could handle the job, I started to be routinely called in for cases in which the police didn’t find any clues.

I was the first werewolf to graduate from college and the first to work as a private detective, which were quite the accomplishments. Especially considering the other werewolves in my pack just thought I should take care of the puppies and an alpha - the fate of every omega, usually. I was proud of myself for wanting something different for myself and going after it.

However, even if I was proud of who I was, I didn’t leave the house without my top hat because of my ears. A werewolf's ears were the only physical sign that instantly betrayed that we weren’t humans and they had to be disguised for our own safety. Even when I spoke to humans who already knew I was a werewolf, I kept my hat, for I knew that the sight of my ears would make them agitated.

There were many challenges in living a world made for humans.

Werewolves didn’t eat human flesh. Humans were too similar to us for us to do that. It would feel a lot like cannibalism to us. Most of us didn’t become uncontrolled beasts either. Despite that, relying on these incorrect assumptions, humans had this really wrong idea that we were inherently dangerous and more similar to animals than to them. They kept us in the forest and built their cities, protecting a world in which we would never mingle.

Yet, I choose to live in the world of humans and facing these incorrect notions and the prejudices derived from them became just routine. A significant part of my job was to help elucidate cases in which werewolves were being charged for crimes without any proofs. That happened with terrible frequency and, usually, it was so easy to prove that the suspected werewolves were being held in prison for no reason at all that it was pathetic that they had been arrested in the first place.

There was, however, a particular case of a werewolf being accused of a crime that really challenged me in many ways and became truly unforgettable to me.

 

* * *

 

On the night of October 1848, when I walked to the police station, I didn’t know many details about the crime that I would investigate yet. I had been hired by an individual who wasn’t directly involved in the case and the only thing this person could tell me is that they firmly believed that the suspect whom the police had arrested was innocent.

Even though the police station street was quiet that night, there was trash all around, indicating that several people had been there earlier. I could imagine the commotion. After all, it wasn’t every day that a human got murdered by a werewolf.

An old acquaintance, Cadet Gilbert Beilschmidt, was at the door of the police station. He smiled warmly and approached me when he saw I was coming to the station.

"Hey, Kirkland. I was curious to see if you would get involved in the last case," he told me, hands on his waist, chin up, and a victorious air around him, as if he’d just won a bet with himself.

Gilbert, out of all the officers I worked with, was the nicest and most genuinely concerned about what was right and wrong and finding out the truth. I was fairly certain that we could be friends if I opened myself to the idea. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Despite the fact that he treated me with special kindness, I tried to treat Gilbert like every other cop. He was a human. Our relationship would never be balanced. If things went sour, who would most likely suffer the consequences of it?

"I was hired by someone to solve it, so yes, I'm involved," I replied in an airy tone, avoiding further details, but not Gilbert's natural curiosity.

"Someone? A werewolf?" 

"Sorry. I can’t give details about who my client is."

"How boring," Gilbert complained, making a displeased face "You're always too serious, Kirkland."

That was true, but still …

"Well, a person is dead," I justified myself.

"Your sense of humor is dead!" he shot back, laughing. Then, he made a gesture with his arm to tell me to follow him into the police station.

Gilbert, truly, wasn’t a bad guy. He just made a conscious effort to take every situation with a sense of humor, however bad they might be. This behavior could make him extremely rude on occasion but also a rare source of joy in the darkest of times.

 

* * *

 

The chief of police didn’t seem as happy as Gilbert was to see me.

"Oh, Arthur Kirkland," he groaned with a grimace. "Why am I not surprised to see you in my office after the turmoil your people made here this morning?”

The chief of police was Phillip Evans. A rather delicate name for a hard man like him. He was a muscular, heavy man with full mustaches and intimidating eyes. We had known each other for years and he still didn’t fully trust me.

I opened my mouth to respond, but he interrupted me to say,

"I suppose you're here to try to free the wolf that we caged, but you should spare yourself from this unnecessary work. He is clearly guilty."

I was there simply to find out the truth, I could have said, but I couldn’t deny that when I was informed by my client about who the suspect was, my gut reaction was a complete rejection of the idea that he might have committed a crime. I felt with all my might that this couldn’t be the case. A bitter taste trickled down my throat at the mere thought that this person was in prison.

I was forced to control my emotions to be able to be impartial in my investigations.  I didn’t know the details of the case and I couldn’t have an opinion before that. Besides, I hadn’t seen the members of my pack for so long. A lot could have changed in that time.

Now, trying not to have an opinion formed already, also meant that I shouldn’t simply accept Mr. Evans's opinion about the suspect's irrefutable guilt. He had said exactly the same thing about a werewolf who was in another country the day the crime for which he was being charged had been committed, and whose innocence I proved rather easily.

"Thank you for your concern for me ..." I said, subtly snarky, causing Mr. Evans to click his tongue, annoyed "... but I'm not here on my own. I was hired by someone to investigate the case."

Mr. Evans frowned and stared at me for a moment as if he were trying to make me quit the job just with a glare.

I simply returned his gaze with the most unaffected expression possible.

He had to surrender and talk to me.

"Why should I cooperate with you?" he touched his temples and fumbled at his desk, looking tired. "It's a simple case. We don’t need you to make it drag for much more time than it needs. The suspect was caught in the act!"

"Oh? Was he killing the victim when you arrived? "I questioned with a cynical tone of fake shock and a raised eyebrow, feeling confident that this wasn’t the case.

"No, he was sleeping close by," he grumbled sourly. Heh. He bit my bait. "But his face was still dirty with blood!"

"How much blood?"

"A few drops. He probably cleaned up after he-" Evans was in the middle of this sentence when he stopped and his eyes became very open. I could see that he was finally hit with the realization that I made him cooperate with me, very smoothly. "Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” he grunted, shaking his head. “You really have a way of extracting information without us noticing it, Kirkland."

I couldn’t even bother to disguise the grin on my face.

"That's why I can do my job,” I told him proudly.

"Alright," he sighed, resigned. "What do you want? Maybe if you take part in the investigation, your friends will stop bothering us. By the way, what's with this guy? Is he your leader or something? I've never seen so many wolves protesting against the arrest of one of you."

The term ‘wolves’ was pejorative. It was also offensive how Mr. Evans spoke of every werewolf, including some who were not even from my pack and whom I had never seen in my life as if we were all part of the same group. Unfortunately, though, I couldn’t complain about it to him. If I did, I would be treated even worse. It was just how society worked.

"No, he's just popular," I replied. I knew who the suspect he was talking about, and it seemed so natural that so many werewolves had come to protest his arrest. He was very cherished by my pack. "As for what I want, I would just like to know what happened and be able to talk to the prisoner. I can handle the rest on my own."

"Very well. I'll tell you what happened.” Mr.Evans said, putting the palms of his hands over his desk.” Yesterday, a young woman named Mona Bonnefoy went to meet the suspect in the forest where he lived during the afternoon. Apparently, the two had a relationship that her family didn’t approve of. Apart from that relationship, Mona was a good girl, so that night, when she didn’t come back home, her family was worried sick and asked for our help finding her. Unfortunately, it was a full moon night, so even knowing the area where it was, we left the search for the next day … We found her - what was left of her - in a remote hut. It was a brutal scene. Really disgusting. A few feet away was the suspect. He had no clothes, there was blood on his face and he was sleeping against a tree. Very suspicious, don’t you think? Well, we woke him up and asked him his name and wouldn’t you know it? He was the last person that the victim met! We arrested him immediately."

They also made their mind on who the culprit was immediately, I added mentally.

"Did he confess?" 

"No, of course not.” Mr. Evans snorted. “His story was that he was at a party the previous afternoon, talking to friends and that he doesn’t remember anything that happened after that."

The fact that Mr. Evans repeated the suspect's words instead of simply saying ‘oh, no, he says he's innocent’ was a bit out of the ordinary, considering his tendency to make generalizations. That made me wonder if there was any possibility that he was taking that information seriously.

"Do you believe him?" I decided to question.

I noticed some hesitancy in Evans's mannerisms. He looked pensive.

"... I believe that he might think so, yes. You wolves don’t control yourselves when you turn. "

As I thought, deep down, Mr.Evans had believed in that story.

"You think he turned and attacked the girl," I concluded.

"Yes, and that explains the lack of clothes."

Now, there were some problems in the story that the chief of police was telling, but if I were to contest him now, without knowing all the facts, he would be angry and wouldn’t cooperate with my investigation. I couldn’t afford that.

"It sounds like a good theory, but I have to make sure it's correct. You know how clients are. Can I speak to the suspect now?” I asked politely.

“Go ahead.” said Mr.Evans with a almost daring smile. He was feeling more confident since I didn’t try to argue with his theory. He probably thought that this case was almost over but for me, it was only starting.

 

* * *

 

The suspect was placed in an underground cell, away from the other prisoners and even the police. A window with bars near the ceiling was the only contact they had with the outside world. All werewolves arrested by the police went to that cell.

I descended the stairs, accompanied only by Gilbert, and even he stood a certain distance, pointing his baton fearfully toward the prisoner’s direction.

"Eh… Sorry, it was a pretty brutal crime," he justified when I scowled at him.

Gilbert's fear was probably being accentuated by the fact that it was very dark down there. He probably wasn’t even seeing the prisoner and what we can’t see is always more frightening in our mind. In my case, however, I could see my surroundings perfectly, and I have to say that Alfred Jones, curled up in his bed, trying to wrap his whole body with a tiny sheet, didn’t look intimidating at all.

"Alfred, come here," I called him in a very soft voice. He seemed to be making a conscious effort to not even look in my direction. "I was hired to investigate your case."

He stayed silent and kept hiding under the sheet. Despite the fact that I was there to help him, he didn’t want to talk to me.

I sighed deeply. I knew that would be hard for him but… it was just as hard for me as well.

 

* * *

 

Although I had known Alfred Jones since I was a kid, I only really got to know him when I was sixteen.

At that age, my life was completely different. I still lived in a small village in the forest with my pack.  Instead of wanting to be a detective, at that time, I wanted to become a successful lawyer to defend the rights of our people. Since no werewolf had ever studied at a human college before, I knew I had to work hard to accomplish my goal. With that in mind, I always went to the city where the humans lived, to pick up books and study in the library.

Fortunately, I was someone with a surprising mental resilience for my age, and in addition to being able to cope well with my rigorous routine of walking into town and continuing hours of study, I dealt well with the fact that the other werewolves thought I was a pretentious, pathetic omega. The alphas mocked me all the time. The betas patronized me. The other omegas absolutely hated me because they thought I was arrogantly dismissing their way of life... Needless to say, I gradually got a bit isolated from the other members of my pack.

To top it all off, my parents _constantly_ tried to convince me how good it would be if I got mated and had children. They kept talking to me about the magical wonders of domestic life. Needless to say, I didn’t really buy it.

However, there was one thing I envied other omegas for having - physical attention. I wanted it. My body was really insisting on it. All the time. To be honest, my only reason not to go after an alpha, like all the other omegas of my age were doing, was because I didn’t want to disrupt my studies. Still, I gradually stopped being able to concentrate on them due to my unsated desires. It was at this point that I came to the conclusion that I had to do something about it.

Supposedly, in such cases, I should ask for advice to the leader of our pack, a sixty-five year old alpha. Obviously, being only sixteen, I felt embarrassed to talk with him about that embarrassing subject. Instead, I went to his son, Frank, and we decided to talk about it over a walk by the lake.

That happened in autumn as well. I remember wearing a coat because of the cold weather and I also recall watching the various gold leaves scattered on the surface of the lake as I walked with Frank and listened to what he had to say, after hearing about all my deepest and most complex feelings.

"If you want to sleep with someone that badly, find a mate!"

Unfortunately, Frank had only one solution in mind and his way of trying to convince me was to repeat it several times. He was an alpha, a year younger than me, destined to be our future leader. His stubbornness wasn’t unexpected.

"I don’t want this," I insisted, annoyed, kicking a rock into the pond and keeping my hands in the pockets of my coat. Frank could be stubborn, but so was I. "Being someone's mate involves a commitment that would take away my time and focus from my studies. Not to mention the possibility of us having a baby, which would _definitely_ take away my time and focus…”

"Look, Arthur. There’s no other way. You're going to have to make a choice. Sleeping with someone or becoming a lawyer. An omega can’t do both." he cut in. He sounded really sure of himself and completely unaffected by how hard that was for me.

Frank seemed so sure of it, so sure that I would have to choose between one thing and another, that I began to wonder if the situation was as simple and terrible as it seemed. I felt the shadow of melancholy and defeat crawling in my spirit.

"Can’t I just… sleep with someone without being mated or constantly pestered for attention?" I asked meekly, with my head down. I didn’t believe this was the case, but I still wanted to try to verify it, before surrendering completely.

“Of course not." Frank laughed. "What alpha would accept that?"

Truth. What alpha would do that? Alphas were raised to be possessive and dominant. If I was perceived as too bold by omegas and betas, imagine what kind of impression I would leave at an alpha. What alpha would have the patience to let me finish my studies before trying to start a family? I could never go out with an alph…

When I was in the middle of this immersion in pessimism, suddenly an idea landed on me, like a leaf falling from a tree.

"How about a beta?" I thought out loud.

"A beta?" Frank frowned in disapproval.

"Yes, a beta man," I said confidently, starting to feel my enthusiasm returning. That plan, suggested so discreetly in my thoughts, began to boil furiously in my mind. "Betas don’t feel all this need for dominance. A beta could accept that, despite sleeping with me, he wouldn’t be my owner.”

Frank seemed skeptical but not for the right reasons.

“Do you really want to be the alpha of the relationship?” he confronted me, mockingly “Don’t take me in the wrong way but I really can’t imagine a strong, stubborn, intelligent omega as yourself with a… Alfred. It wouldn’t work.”

And there you have it. Alfred. The bridge between this story about my teenage years and the crime story I was telling before.

Alfred was probably used as an example because he was a beta that really didn’t try to be as strong as an alpha, as so many beta males did. He didn’t fight, didn’t exercise a lot and he barely showed any interest for omegas. Alfred liked fishing, taking long walks, trying out different foods and reading. Sometimes, we bumped into each other at the town’s library. Overall, he was a really nice guy. He was even one of Frank’s best friends. However, nobody saw Alfred as someone that would catch the attention of an omega.  He was taller than most alphas but he had no muscles, only softness. He was all round and soft with big cheeks and blue cheerful eyes. He appeared to be way more friendly than tough, which wasn’t what omegas usually looked for, but wouldn’t that mean less competition for me?

I said nothing else on the matter for Frank. Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to understand, I just rolled my eyes at him and said “sure, sure”. While I pretended indifference to his accidental suggestion, I started to ask myself if Alfred and I really would be that bad of a match.

On the next day, I went to look for Alfred in a part of the forest where he and other werewolves about our age spent most of their free time. As expected, I found him there. He was leaning against a tree, having a conversation with Frank and three other alphas. The alphas were having a heated discussion about who had the biggest… They were about to fight over it, honestly. Alfred was the only one that kept the situation light by making jokes, such as ‘so that’s why you are so strong, gentleman! You work your muscles by dragging around your massive wood!’. With just that bit of observation, I noticed that Alfred was actually a very cheeky fella, though no one got offended by his jokes because Alfred was Alfred and he wasn’t a threat to anyone in any way.

Okay, so he had a sense of humor, which was good enough for me in terms of personality, but could I find him physically attractive?

Pretending to be reading a book, I hung around nearby and, on that single day, I noticed Alfred more than I had noticed him in years of acquaintanceship. I listened to his voice and paid attention to his expressions, his face and body, looking for a sign that I could feel attraction for that man.  

After a couple of hours, I made an interesting discovery. Apparently, Alfred was the kind of person who didn’t impress anyone at first, second or thousandth glance, really. Only if you started to notice him a bit more carefully, you would see that there was a charm about him. A unique type of charm that became more obvious and potent the more you looked at him.

At the time, I had no idea of what gave him that charm. I felt its effects but I couldn’t rationalize it and therefore, I was intrigued and curious. Alfred was the complete opposite of what they told omegas to lust for but I decidedly felt that he was the right one for my plans.

 

* * *

 

"We weren’t supposed to meet this way." Alfred lamented in his dark cell, in a monologue more to himself than to me, waking me up from my daydreaming about the past. "I always thought that when you saw me again, I would be in a much better position. With a good job, a mate and two small children. Then you'd look at me and think, ' _Oh, I can’t believe it. He’s doing so well!_ '..."

There is no wave in the ocean higher than the level of embarrassment I was experiencing. I wanted to cover my face with my hands.

I also didn’t think I would meet Alfred again in circumstances like these, but on second thought, I should have expected that. After all, I intended to continue to avoid Alfred for the rest of my life and it was only the extreme circumstances of the situation that pushed me to see him again.

"Well, I'm sorry our reunion took place in less than favorable conditions." I tried to be diplomatic and forced a business smile. "If it's any consolation, I'll do my best to get you out of here."

"It would be embarrassing to get your help," he grumbled with the tone of a spoiled child.

“What? Are you embarrassed to be helped by an omega?” I couldn’t help but let out this dry remark. Alfred didn’t deserve this accusation but after so many years dealing with cranky werewolves underestimating me, I became very defensive.

Alfred, however, was never this kind of person and got utterly shocked by being accused of such a thing.

"No, of course not! What the hell, Arthur. I know you're competent!" he exclaimed, horrified by how I interpreted his words. "Hell, I ... I just …” he seemed to be at lost of what to say to me and suddenly got up, walking in circles, with his hands on his head. I calmly observed his conundrum until he pointed at me and said almost accusingly “That's the problem!"

He walked to the bars separating us. His body looked huge and imposing inside that small cell. His height almost reached the low ceiling. He was completely naked too, I quickly noticed, but in the heat of the moment, neither he nor I had time to be embarrassed by it.

"You're here, looking all smart, professional and competent while I'm a mess!" he stated angrily. "Of course, I don’t want your help! It's not a matter of you being an omega! It’s a matter of you being my ex-lover, damnit!”

At hearing it, Gilbert let out an indiscreet, surprised gasp. I felt my face boil.

Ex-lovers… If Alfred and I could be called that… It wasn’t as clear to me as it was for him. I wouldn’t have that discussion with him, though. That was a long and complicated story that we had to put behind to work together.

I was doing my best to see Alfred simply as a suspect that needed my help but it became clear that Alfred, on the other hand, was just seeing me as the man who broke his heart, instead of a private detective who came to help to solve his case. It was difficult to ask for his trust when he thought of me like that but I had to try it, for his own sake.

"Alfred, I know that we have a past," I acknowledged uneasily, averting my gaze. I felt my throat dry. "I’m aware that we didn’t break up properly…”

“ _You_ didn’t break up with _me_ properly.”  Alfred corrected, resentfully, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Still, we have to ignore this to work together," I added with a sigh. "I am the only person capable of proving your innocence."

"I don’t need your help. I'm actually innocent, so the police will figure it out when they investigate my case," Alfred dismissed me casually.

Poor, poor kid. He knew nothing about the human world.

"Alfred, don’t be stupid. Do you really think they will grasp what is happening? The police think you turned and got out of control on the full moon and attacked Mona," I revealed, staring at him with a frown, trying to make him confront reality.

"What? This is ridiculous. I mean, I'm a beta." he laughed. "Tell them that."

Alfred was so naive. It was infuriating.

"The police don’t know the differences between alphas and betas, Alfred. They don’t understand that betas don’t lose control of themselves when they turn in the full moon." I threw the facts at him, getting more and more exalted. "They don’t understand werewolves at all. We are all the same for them and they won’t waste time shooting you if they think you’re dangerous!"

“Art...” Alfred looked shaken by what I was saying but I couldn’t bring myself to stop.

"We can’t waste time with stupid love affairs!" I shouted, clenching my fists. "Don’t you understand? You'll be killed if I don’t help you!"

I covered my mouth right after saying that.

Oh, bloody hell. I didn’t want to say something that would make Alfred more nervous or Gilbert suspicious of me.

I quickly checked at Gilbert and he just shrugged at me, with an understanding look, almost as if saying ‘well, you’re not lying about anything’. I looked down after that. I was afraid to look at Alfred and see the expression on his face, knowing that it would have been caused by me.

He was in a dark, isolated cell, with no clothes on in a cold night, accused of a crime he might not have committed. And there I was, yelling at him that if he didn’t accept my help, he would die. It was truly scared how bitter I had become over the years. I never thought I would become this sort of person...

"You're right ..." Alfred said, softly breaking the heavy silence between us.

I blinked in surprise, raising my eyes to meet his.

“What?”

"You're right," he repeated louder and more certain of it. His countenance lost his turbulent emotions and now, was merely resigned, almost defeated. "I don’t have enough time left to dwell on the past. Besides, at least as a detective, I think I can trust you. "

This response traversed my being like a knife going through my body. I had to swallow so many words and feelings all at once, that I almost felt like I could choke on them. I knew I had to be composed and professional. If I let even a single drop of my feelings come out, they would soon drown me.

"I ... I'll do my best to help you," I promised Alfred, staring into his eyes, determined. I had a job to do and I wanted to do it well. "Now, tell me...  What really happened?"

 


	2. The Basics

Deep down, I was half-expecting Alfred to say the most convenient answer to my question. As if he would just tell me “oh, I didn’t want to say to the chief of police but actually, at the night of the crime, I was with all those people that can give me a safe alibi and also I saw this incredibly suspect person in an incredibly compromising position so you should look into it”.

Undoubtedly, this would be the easiest and more elegant solution, though, disappointingly, not the possible one.

“I didn’t do anything special that day. I went to the Full Moon Celebration in the afternoon. I talked to some people over there, drank a beer and then, I blacked out.”

The Full Moon Celebration started when the sun was at its highest point in the sky and finished at the sunset. The celebration was a way of wasting our energy before the first night of full moon of the month when alphas turned into wolves and betas and omegas acquired the ability to turn as well if they wished so.

Unlike humans usually thought of us, werewolves didn’t turn into beasts hungry for human flesh. On the full moon, alphas got overcome by wolf instincts and lost their rational mind but if they were well-fed and tired, they just kept rolling in the grass and playing with each other, without causing any damage. Omegas might become a little disoriented when they decided to turn but in most part, they kept their memories and thoughts. And betas? Betas were astonishing in this aspect. They were the only type that was able to turn without losing even a small fraction of their self-control. The Full Moon Celebration, therefore, was a way for us to celebrate our gift to turn and also, a way of getting alphas tired enough so they wouldn’t cause any ruckus.

Mr. Evans didn’t understand the nuances of our culture and I honestly thought he wouldn’t pay attention to me if I ever tried to explain it to him. That was a shame. If only he understood how our gift worked,  he would see that his theory that Alfred had turned and lost his self-control in the night of the murder was impossible.

Anyway…

“You blacked out with a single beer?” I squinted at Alfred, not knowing whether I should be skeptical or condescending about this information.

“I’m… I’m not used to drinking, alright?!” he frowned and pouted at me, looking a bit embarrassed. Then, he went back to his bed, covering the lower part of his body with his small blanket, all while keeping eye contact with me. “A-As I was saying, after I drank that beer, I felt very dizzy and I sit in a nearby tree to rest for a while but I ended up falling asleep. When I woke up, I was in a different place and there was a bunch of guards around me. They asked me ‘What is your name?’. I answered and then they told me ‘You’re arrested for the murder of Mona Bonnefoy’ and proceed to hit me hard at the stomach.” Alfred rubbed his belly with a wince. “It really hurt. I got a bit dizzy again and they took advantage of it to tie up my hands and put me over one of their horses before I could react.”

Hearing this, I felt a sickly, unpleasant sensation settle right in the pit of my stomach.

“Ah... I... I’m truly sorry.”

I really couldn’t be indifferent to something like that.

"It's okay." Alfred smiled with his mouth, but not with his eyes. "To be honest, it hurt a lot more to see you here."

I don’t think Alfred or anyone who knew me could understand the effect he had on me and how much his words resonated in my consciousness. Those words hit me like a hard slap on the face.

I tried to disguise this feeling by asking questions about the case again as if I hadn’t listened to what Alfred just said:

"Did you really know the victim?"

He lowered his eyes and intertwined his fingers. His expression became just a shadow.

"Miss Bonnefoy, right? Indeed, I knew her." he began to swing his legs, looking a little anxious.  "Did this really happen?"

“This what?”

“Is she really dead?”

I was momentarily stunned before I realized... Oh. He didn’t know all the details about the case. He was a suspect, so I could understand why the police hadn’t revealed much of what they knew to him. Now that I thought about it, regardless of our past, I myself had to be cautious about revealing too much to Alfred or that could jeopardize my investigation. However, I felt that I could answer at least that question.

“Yes, she was murdered.”

Sometimes, a heavy and bitter true needs to be said. There was no other way around it. I waited in suspense for Alfred's reaction to this news, feeling like I just threw an explosive at the distance. After all, it had to be terrible, almost unbearable, to hear that your lover was murdered and that you were being accused of the crime.

"That's… shocking," Alfred said with his mouth hanging open. "I can’t think of anyone who would do that to her. Honestly." then, he shook his head in dismay. "Poor girl. No one deserves such an end. "

I had expected fury, denial and despair coming from him. His reaction, however, was surprisingly weak compared to what I had in mind. He looked like an outsider hearing about a crime that occurred to a stranger, not like a person who had just tragically lost his loved one.

I could barely disguise my confusion at this.

"Was she really your lover?" I asked almost automatically.

I immediately scolded myself for asking this question this way. I shouldn’t have done that so directly! Such a beginners mistake! I should have simply questioned what was Alfred relationship with her while pretending that I didn’t know that they were involved, to see what he was going to tell me. That would be more informative. It’s just that, speaking with Alfred was just… No, I won’t make excuses.

Once again, Alfred’s response surprised me.

“She wasn’t,” Alfred answered with no hesitation and with a ticked expression that seemed completely out of place.

It’s hard for me to admit it but, weirdly, I felt somehow relieved hearing this.

"What was she to you, then?"

Alfred covered his face with one of his hands, lowering his body in a way that almost made his belly rest on his knees. He muttered to himself, something he usually did when he had to make an important decision. Due to my hat blocking my ears, I couldn’t detect much of what he was saying. I heard 'is it worth it' and 'he will never...' but I still had no idea what he was rambling about.

Before Alfred decided to answer me or not, Gilbert put a hand on my shoulder and informed me.

"Sorry, Kirkland. Visiting hours are over. You can come back tomorrow if you want. "

Alfred, immediately, raised his head, eyebrows jumping on his forehead. For all his initial resistance to see me, he looked startled now at the prospect of me leaving. Who could blame him for that? That place was horrible. And his eyes were telling me this. That he was afraid of what could happen to him alone there.

It was really painful to see him like that.

"I'll try to come back tomorrow," I told him, with a small smile, trying to comfort him. "You'll be fine. I'll solve this case.”

"Thank you, I know you will," Alfred replied, politely smiling back, although his lowered ears revealed his true feelings. He didn’t believe in me. He wanted to, he was trying to but he couldn’t. Not yet.

 

* * *

 

When I got home, I ran to my bed, pressed my face against the pillow and groaned against it for a very long time.

I felt terrible. Talking with Alfred after all those years was already difficult for me. Added to the fact that I had to leave him in a dark, cold cell and go home, had really left me emotionally worn. I did my best to act professionally in front of Alfred, but that didn’t mean that I  had managed to be completely professional on all levels. For heaven's sake, how would I be? It was Alfred! I couldn’t be distant and cold about Alfred! I was _never_ able to be distant and cold to Alfred.

Before I went to sleep, I thought a lot about how Alfred paradoxically looked big in that small cell, with a low ceiling, but at the same time, very small, without his clothes or any understanding of what was happening to him.

 

* * *

 

That night, I had a dream about the past. I dreamt of one of my dates with Alfred. The scenario was the old library as usual. We always went to the library due to my constant need to study for the university’s exams.

In my dream, we were just doing the usual that we did on these dates. Reading different books, side-by-side, without exchanging a word. I could notice, however, that Alfred sometimes stopped reading and discreetly peeked at my direction. His expression looked really stupid when he did that. His eyes got big and curious, his cheeks very red. Politely, I acted like I didn’t see him doing that. I thought he might get embarrassed if he realized I noticed him.

Besides, I had absolutely no idea of how to react to his genuine interest for me.

 

* * *

 

It had been a while since I dreamt about Alfred and I felt melancholic waking up from this one. It felt incredibly real. Exactly like experiencing a memory all over again.

I hated that feeling.

It was a terrible time to be nostalgic. I had a case to solve and I couldn’t waste my time and energy thinking about the old days and tormenting myself over my past decisions. How would I ever be impartial if I did that?

I left that dream behind me and went to make some tea and toast, thinking about what I could do on that day to advance my investigation. After some pondering, I decided that it would be a good start going to the forest to interrogate some members of my pack about the Full Moon Celebration. Also, if the police allowed me, I could investigate the crime scene, looking for more proofs. There was no time to be wasted. Right after my breakfast, I hired a carriage to bring me to the fences that separated the town and the forest.

My coachman was a little startled when he realized where we were going. He commented to me midway: 'Going into the woods, eh? Be careful, sir. There are some blasted wolves living there. '. ‘Oh, I’m aware of it’, I answered graciously.

The fence made it impossible for the carriage to go into the forest and as soon as we reached it, I got out of the carriage and paid a few coins for my driver, giving him a bit more of money for his generosity in taking me to that area that humans used to avoid. 'Thank you, sir! I'm going to pray that you come back safely!’, he gleefully told me.

Ironically, I was already coming back safely. Even though I had been living among humans for years, deep in my heart, I knew that the forest was my true home. There was no place in the world where I felt safer. I knew that region and every werewolf who lived there very well.

 

* * *

 

On the way to the village, there was a lake, which provided water and some food to my pack. It was also a very quiet and pleasant place, with which I had fond memories. As I passed by it, I couldn’t help but smile at how beautiful it looked, with its surface adorned with the golden autumn leaves.

That image brought back memories of the day I tried to court Alfred for the first time.

Every day, in the late afternoon, a time when almost no one was around, Alfred went to the lake to fish - that was one of his hobbies. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to approach him, given that we would have some privacy and, indeed, on that day I went after him, he was all by himself, focused on the surface of the lake and the feeling of the fishing rod.

I thought that being alone with Alfred would give me more peace of mind to approach him but instead, I felt incredibly nervous. I never tried to court anyone and I didn’t know what to say to Alfred now that I had a chance to do that. Should I be bold and make my intentions clear? Subtle to make him wonder and wonder about me?

I slowly approached his back, in silent, trying to use every last second to decide what should be my opening line.

However, my plans didn’t work as I expected to. As he noticed me behind him, Alfred screamed in terror, placing his hand on his chest and almost falling back on the lake. His scream was so loud and sudden that I stumbled and almost fell backward with his reaction as well.

"A-Arthur?! Since when were you watching me?!” he asked in an accusatory tone. “You almost scared me to death! You're too discreet!”

Putting my hand on my own chest, I screamed back at him with my brows furrowed and quickened breath:

"I'm sorry I didn’t arrive screaming and jumping! I'm sure the fish would appreciate it!"

"What's the use of not making any noise if you're going to make _me_ scream?!"

We glared each other for a moment.

"... Just saying, I'm not a coward. You just… uh...  surprised me, "Alfred muttered after a while, awkwardly going back to fishing.

"I'm completely convinced," I replied sarcastically, casually sitting next to him.

I stayed there and kept silently scolding myself. How could I be so bad at courting? I was a little annoyed with Alfred but infinitely more annoyed with myself.

"What are you doing here, anyway?” Alfred asked me just when I thought that there was no way we would manage to have a normal conversation. “You're never in a place that doesn’t have books. An Arthur without books is like an alpha without an exaggerated sense of self-worth."

“I…”, ‘I wanted to see you’, I blushed just at the thought of saying it. “I… needed some time away from my books.” I lied.

“Oh.” he blinked. “So even you need a break sometimes, huh?”

I nodded while my gaze fixated at the lake’s surface.

“Do you want to try fishing?” Alfred offered, handing me his fishing rod.

I had no interest in fishing but that seemed like a good way of bonding with Alfred. Even if I still didn’t know how to talk to him and much less how to convey my true intentions, if I could stay near him, I would figure it out, eventually. With that in mind, I accepted his offer.

“It would be nice to try, yes.” I smiled gratefully.

“Did you ever fish before?”

“Not really.”

“My first tip is… be alert. You never know when a creep will sneak up and startle you,” he said with a smirk.

“Oh, shut up.” I rolled my eyes, embarrassed.

Alfred was fortunately someone easy to talk to but it seemed that, even so, it would still take me a long time to take him to my bedroom. I was tragically bad at courting.

 

* * *

 

“Kirkland! Oi, Kirkland!”

Someone called me, waking me up from my wandering thoughts. The sound was distant but I managed to find its direction, way north and a bit to the right, and I looked at its source, encountering familiar faces. Two betas, Louis and Octavius, Alfred's old friends, were fishing and saw me on the other side of the lake, so they called me to join them.

This was an extremely convenient meeting. I circled the lake to reach them and greeted both raising my hand.

“It’s a relief to see you here, Kirkland,” Louis said. “You are probably here to prove that Alfred is innocent, correct?”

“I’m here to investigate what happened.” I subtly corrected him.

“The police got the wrong person. That is what happened.” Octavius said with anger and certainty. “They always think that one of us is the culprit. Alfred just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Since I couldn’t tell them my opinions, I simply asked:

“Did you see Alfred during the Full Moon Celebration?”

“Yes, I remember seeing Alfred at noon,” Octavius told me. “He was in a good mood, having fun.”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t see Alfred. These celebrations are so crowded. It’s hard to know where everyone is.” Louis answered meekly, scratching his cheek.

Hm. That wasn’t good enough.

“Do you know anyone who might have seen Alfred at the end of the celebration?”

They looked at each other and then shook their heads at the same time.

No alibi for Alfred, then.

“What do you know about Mona Bonnefoy?”

“Ah, Alfred’s lover?” Louis smiled. “I always tell him that he was lucky to find such a girl. What a beautiful human! And she’s rich! That contributes immensely with her beauty.”

“Why are you asking about her?” Octavius stared at me, suspiciously. “Do you think she was with Alfred when the crime happened?”

On that moment, I realized that Louis and Octavius didn’t know who was the victim and maybe didn’t even know of what crime specifically Alfred was being accused of. I took the liberty to give them this information. They weren’t really secret, anyway, and the truth had to be exposed for me to question them any further.  

“Miss Bonnefoy was murdered two nights ago. This is the crime that Alfred is being accused of.”

Louis’s face turned completely white. Octavius, on the other hand, chewed on his lip, repetitively muttering some curses before kicking a rock on the lake.

“I can’t believe they are blaming Alfred for a murder!” Louis exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, covering his mouth with his hands. “Alfred would never, never do such thing!”

“Tsk. It’s awful to think that an innocent girl died and that the police, instead of going after the actual murderer, are keeping Alfred locked in a cell.” Octavius threw his fishing rod to the side and started walking in circles.

Although their emotional reactions were distinct, they both seemed upset about the news.

"Did Alfred and miss Bonnefoy have a relationship?" I asked next. The chief of police and Alfred himself had given conflicting answers to that question. I had to clarify that.

“Yes, they did. They were always together, no matter what Alfred was doing or where he was.” Louis answered sadly. “However!” he got a bit agitated suddenly “That doesn’t mean that he did that, Kirkland!”

“Kirkland, I know what you’re thinking, so let me say this. Alfred could be a bit shy and reserved about their relationship but who wouldn’t be?” Octavius asked in an almost confrontational tone, with his hands on his hips, tapping his foot on the ground. "A relationship between a werewolf beta and a human! It is quite scandalous. I can understand why he would want to hide it! That doesn’t make Alfred more or less suspicious."

Two more confirmations that Alfred was in a relationship with Mona Bonnefoy. I had to consider the possibility that Alfred was lying. Maybe for me, maybe for the people around him. One way or another, that was troubling. I needed to get an answer about the true relationship between the two as soon as possible.

"Do you know of anyone who disliked Miss Bonnefoy?"

"To be honest, no, I don’t. I didn’t know her that well." Octavius replied with a sigh.

"Maybe Alfred will know about somebody," Louis suggested.

With that, we finished the conversation. I thanked them for their help and left them to enjoy the rest of their day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do the same. I had a crime scene to investigate.  

 

* * *

 

I knew the hut where the crime had happened. It had been built by Alfred and some alphas many years ago, before Alfred and I even started sleeping together. Alfred once told me that an older alpha asked him and a bunch of friends to help him build a place, distant from the village, for him to bring an omega to with whom he was having an affair. He promised Alfred and others that if they helped and were discreet about it, they could have free use of the hut as well. In Alfred’s case, this offer was more symbolic than anything - no one really believed that Alfred would have a lover to bring there. However, I appeared and that changed.

Alfred and I had spent many long and interesting afternoons in that hut. I won’t describe in details, especially to an outsider, what we used to do there. I will only admit that I blushed a little as I walked there and remembered those moments.

However, as I reached it, I didn’t find the secret and special place of my memories but rather a crime scene, completely surrounded by police officers with raised weapons.

I raised my hands and slowly approached the officers. I knew exactly why they were so defensive. They were scared because they were in a werewolf forest.

"Hello, gentleman," I said calmly and confidently while a dozen weapons were pointed at my direction. "May I join the inspector to investigate the scene?"

“Get out, Kirkland.” officer Brookwells hissed. “A damn wolf should stay far away from this case.”

"Well, I’m sad that you feel this way but I got permission from the police chief to get involved," I informed him very candidly.

"What? I didn’t hear that!" he seemed disarmed with my revelation, but refused to lower both his metaphorical barriers and his real weapon. "Besides!” he cleared his throat one, two, three times, gaining some time to think on what to say next. “Besides, even if the boss has authorized you here, our own inspector is working now and he can’t be pestered! You will have to wait. "

“When I will be able to check the scene, then?”

A confrontation there would end badly for me, therefore I had to quickly resign myself to the fact that I wouldn’t be able to cooperate with the inspector and that I would probably lose a couple of clues while waiting for my turn to investigate the crime scene myself.

Mr. Brookwells, noticing that he was the one in advantage, relaxed a little and showed me an arrogant, mocking grin.

"When we are finished, then you can take a look," he told me.

That didn’t answer my question, but at least it made very clear that I wouldn’t be able to persuade them to let me through. There were so many officers there, it was truly intimidating. On the other hand, I thought, the police station was probably very empty at that time.

This thought gave me an idea of how I could spend the rest of my afternoon.

 

* * *

 

As expected, when I arrived at the police station, there was no one at the door. I was able to get in there without being detained or questioned about the package I was bringing in. However, I bumped into Gilbert when I was in front of the staircase that led to Alfred's underground cell. Being very Gilbert, all that he asked was ‘What's that that you’re bringing in? Is it food?’ and when I denied it, he clicked his tongue, disappointed, moved to the side and let me proceed.

When I arrived, Alfred was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, using his tiny sheet to cover the lower portion of his body. His ears moved as he heard someone arriving and he quickly peeked at me. When he saw that I was the one standing in front of his cell, he quickly tried to cover himself better and look a bit more dignified.  

"Ah, Arthur! I didn’t expect you so early!”

He seemed rather embarrassed and very aware that with the rays of sunlight coming through the window, I could see him more clearly than I had in the previous night. The huge bruise on his belly captured my attention especially, causing me a pungent feeling of sorrow.

Apparently, Alfred mistook the direction of my gaze.

"Honestly, Arthur! This isn’t the time for you to look at me like that!” he put his hands in front of his nether parts.

I was so mortified by this that I gasped, not even managing to counter his accusation, despite the fact that he was completely wrong.

“I… I wasn’t looking…!” I stuttered, with my mouth hanging half-open.

"Right," Alfred answered skeptically. "You didn’t change at all, huh?” he raised an eyebrow.  “Well, I guess it's good for my ego knowing that you still like my body," he said with a mixture of petulance and annoyance, sliding his hand across his chest.

I really felt like I could explode. I was trying to be professional! Alfred wasn’t helping me by telling me things that made me notice his body! I wasn’t looking at that part of him _before_!

I wanted to tell him that he was wrong and that he should treat me with more respect, but when I opened my mouth, all that came out was a mumbled and hurried:

“Ibroughtyouclothes!” I blurted it out, red, throwing inside the cell the package with the folded clothes. Apparently getting Alfred dressed was now the priority in my mind.

He got a little surprised by this development.

"Really?" he walked over to the package, awkwardly getting it from the ground while still trying to cover his parts with the sheet.

Trying to make him more comfortable, I turned my back to him, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Yes, I went to your house and got these clothes," I informed him, taking a deep breath and trying to regain my composure. The little rustles noises of the fabric against Alfred’s skin were a torment to my imagination. "Your parents told me to say that they love you and wish you well,” I remembered while trying to think of something to say.

“They were polite to you, I hope?” he checked. I noticed the tension in his voice. He was aware that Mr. and Mrs. Jones no longer liked me and probably also aware of how bad they were at disguising their feelings.

Fortunately, _I_ wasn’t bad at disguising my feelings.

“They were a bit cold but I expected as much.”

"Oh sorry. I felt awf… I was rather upset when we broke up so I understand why they would react like this."Alfred's voice sounded slightly embarrassed. He was quiet for a moment, before asking in a completely different tone, sounding almost amused."Hey, what’s with this top hat?"

"I bought it on the way here,” I explained, trying to sound casual about it. “I recommend you to use it when you speak to the police. "

“I don’t think that a hat would make them forget the fact that I’m a werewolf.” he sneered.

"Believe me, I know that," I sighed impatiently. "Still, hats have their uses when it comes to dealing with humans."

"Look, thank you for the concern, but they've already arrested me without clothes. It seems silly to be modest about my ears now. "

Dear lord, Alfred truly didn’t understand how humans worked. I was evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of engaging in a discussion with him about the benefits of wearing hats when, suddenly, he announced ...

"You can turn around now!"

The image I saw when I turned around quickly struck my heart.

Even wearing only a white shirt and black pants, Alfred looked quite different now that he was dressed. He no longer looked just like a vulnerable prisoner in a deplorable situation. Wearing only a few clothes gave him a little more dignity and confidence and reminded me much more of the Alfred of my past… Especially since he wasn’t using the hat.

"What are you doing? I told you that the hat is useful!" I insisted, pointing to his ears that moved up a bit with my accusation.

"I know, I know!" he rolled his eyes and moved the corners of his mouth with disdain. "If there is a situation in which it is necessary, I will use it, but do not expect me to use it all the time. It’s so uncomfortable to cover the ears! I don’t know how _you_ do it all the time!"

I put my hands on my hips with a proud, confident smile.

“Oh, I'm quite capable, you see ..." I began to say.

"Listen, you said you wanted to know about my relationship with Mona, right?" Alfred interrupted me with an ‘I-don’t-want-to-hear-about-it’ look on his face while adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. Luckily for him, that interruption was the only one he could have done without me complaining about it since I really needed to know about his relationship with the victim.

I nodded, getting serious, and paying close attention to his words.

“Arthur, I can talk about it with you but ..." Alfred rubbed the back of his neck, looking away "... promise you'll believe what I'm going to say."

"I can’t promise that," I stated in all honesty. "Your words will count as nothing more than a version of the facts."

"Urgh, alright, _detective_ Kirkland." Alfred grunted impatiently, putting emphasis on the word ‘detective’. "Can you at least promise me you won’t laugh at me for what I'm going to say?"

I was a bit offended at that request. Did Alfred really think I was such a pathetic ex? That I would mock his love life while he was being charged with a crime?

"Alfred, I’m working,” I said, very serious, in a subtle and reprehensive tone. “I don’t have time to play.”  

“Promise me!” he still demanded, frowning and making a face.

Judging by his expression, he wouldn’t tell me anything before I made that promise. Very well. If he really wanted me to promise that, I could do as much.

“I promise.”

Pleased by this simple sentence, Alfred sat down and took a deep breath, getting ready to finally give me explanations.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! Thank you for your support in this new story! I hope that you're enjoying it so far and trying to solve the mystery yourselves!^_^
> 
> I would like to give my special thanks to Ixie, for her help with revising this chapter. Also, to Liberty13roses, Stupid_Thing, Kiranju, VivaDragnire, LiberTeaisGood, SherlockScones(very appropriate name for this fic, btw), OffBrandRamen, louisecookiex, DeadlyWeird, KuroNekoSuna, Lael, haruhi, Sadaf_Awesome, AwesomeTomatoBoom, kinginchief, CielPh, ForLoveOfLiberTea, Valeriana29 and Gamma_Flama and all the guests for leaving kudos! And of course, thanks IxiePixie, Liberty13roses, VivaDragnire, LiberTeaIsGood, Sadaf_Awesome, Vin and Tovarich for leaving reviews! I answered them already!
> 
> If you enjoyed this new chapter, please let me know your thoughts about it!
> 
> Take care and have a lovely days, guys ~


	3. The Lungs of The Crime Scene

"The truth is, Mona wasn’t my lover."

Since this information, repeated by Alfred, had been contradicted by other testimonials, at first, it didn’t sound really plausible. However, Alfred wasn’t finished yet.

"I've never felt anything for her and I've always made that clear. She was the one who liked me and wouldn’t take a ‘no’ for an answer. She just kept following me and saying she would never leave me alone unless I married her." he remembered with obvious discomfort. “It was very suffocating, really. I told her on several occasions that I wanted nothing to do with her, but she completely ignored me."

Oh.

They weren’t a couple, then. Instead, Miss Bonnefoy had a one-sided interest in him that caused some confusion among his peers. It was no wonder that Alfred had hesitated to let me know the truth. That information was no good to help with the theory that Alfred was innocent. On the contrary, this gave him a good reason to want to get rid of the victim.

And yet, what he told me next made me see that this wasn’t his main concern.

"You doubt me, don’t you?" he asked dejectedly. "Nobody believes when I say that. Nobody believes that I would reject a rich and beautiful girl when I’m just a very average beta with nothing attractive about myself."

That last sentence left a bad taste in my mouth. Not only because I never, never liked to see Alfred putting himself down, but also because by saying that no one wanted him, it was as if he was ignoring our past. More specifically, my feelings about our past.

In the past, I wanted Alfred to the point of losing nights of sleep because of it. I had wanted him so much that for so many times, I had completely lost control of my tongue and my breath in front of him. I wanted him so, so very badly so that even I got afraid of the intensity of my feelings.

How could he talk something like that? Like it was a ridiculous idea that anyone could want him? And right in front of me!

“Do not be ridiculous," I spoke with my voice much more affected by emotion than I would like.

Alfred looked up in surprise as he heard me speak. Seeing his reaction, I became very self-conscious and felt my body tense.

"You… You do have enough qualities to make someone attracted to you." I tried to make this sentence sound as theoretical as possible.

"Oh. Thank you, I guess." Alfred replied with a shrug, looking a bit cheerless. He probably was thinking I was just saying that to be polite, which wasn’t true but I couldn’t convince him of that, without going completely off the subject, so I decided to move on from that topic.

"Was there anyone who knew of your true relationship with Miss Bonnefoy?"

"Yes, a couple of people. Frank is the leader of the pack now, so I consulted him about it. My family and her family obviously knew about it too. Also, I told plenty of my friends about it. Most of them dismissed me because they thought I was lying to hide my true relationship with Mona.”

I made a mental note that these were the people with whom I would have to speak to confirm what he was saying.

At first glance, Alfred's account seemed to go against the accounts of two of his friends and the victim's family, but I could see how all versions could make sense at the same time. Of course that the victim's family would never say, "Oh, yeah, our daughter stalked this werewolf, who didn’t even want her back". A forbidden love tale at least was more commendable to admit to the police. Alfred's friends, on the other hand, despite saying that they were a couple, always made it clear that this was just their assumption, not something Alfred had directly assumed.

There was still the possibility that Alfred was trying to fool me with that story, but if that was the case, it would be far less suspicious for him to say "We were very close friends" or "We were a couple and she was the love of my life”, instead of saying “She was just a girl who wouldn’t leave me alone and threatened me” .

In short, I had reason to believe that Alfred's story could be real, although I didn’t have enough to think that I didn’t need to check it out.

"Did you told Miss Bonnefoy to meet you at the night of the crime?"

"Oh, no, no. I hardly invited her to meet me in the first place. It was unnecessary. She always showed up where I was, anyway.” he rolled his eyes, looking sourly about it. "Even if I had to invite her, I would never make her come alone into the woods at night. She could end up getting lost or being attacked by thugs or wild animals. Even being a seriously spoiled brat, she wouldn’t deserve that, you know?”

Alfred was, indeed, the kind of person who would have that concern even towards someone he didn’t like. I felt a warm and sweet sense of familiarity seeing him talking like that and I ended up smiling discreetly.

“Hey, Arthur.”

Oh, had he noticed me smiling?

"Y-Yes, what is it?"

"I feel much better now that I’m wearing something." the smile on his face, when he said it, was the most genuine one since we met again. Despite how dispirited the rest of his countenance was, the warmth of that smile almost melted the ice in my heart. "Thank you very much."

"It was no big deal," I answered and distractedly I ran the tip of my tongue over my teeth. "I couldn’t leave you in that state."

“Otherwise, how would you be able to focus while talking to me, right?” he gave me a playful grin.

Taken by embarrassment, I was about to open my mouth to deny that mortifying affirmation, but Alfred interjected first:

"It was a joke. Sorry, I think I'm using humor to cope with this situation."

"You use humor to handle every situation, Alfred."

"Heh, I can not deny it." He smiled bitterly. "It’s just how I am. Some things never change, you know?"

He was right. Some things never change. Certainly, there were aspects of Alfred that hadn’t changed in those eight years and perhaps even I hadn’t changed completely.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Going back to the days of my adolescence, I can confidently say that the more I met Alfred, the more convinced I became that we were quite different from each other. He was sociable, easily excited and had no goals for his life and I was the complete opposite of him in all these aspects. Besides, he didn’t like tea, which was a strong indication that we would never be compatible. On one hand, I thought that our incompatibility might be a good thing to keep him from having ideas of a serious relationship with me. On the other hand, our differences made it difficult for me to find something to talk to him about.

Still, I refused to stop visiting him and lose that connection. I made a big effort just to approach him, after all. I was determined to go on and only give up on the day he straight-up told me I was bothering him. I simply remained silent for most of our first meetings, just to be safe. As I visited Alfred in that lake, just to see him fishing and hear him blabbering about his day, I silently reprimanded myself for not knowing what to say back other than ‘Interesting!’ and ‘Oh, really?’. Eventually, my own silence started to make me nervous and confused. I started to wonder how Alfred perceived me … he probably thought I was odd and boring.

I was so convinced that I was just being a nuisance to Alfred that I was completely taken aback the day he told me,

"You know, Arthur. I'd like to thank you.”

Truly, I didn’t think I deserved a ‘thank you’ for anything, much less one coming from Alfred.

"For what?" I asked with my eyebrows standing up high on my forehead.

"The people I talk to usually don’t care about my life. I'm used to always being the one who listens to everyone, but no one ever listens to me," he said, grinning awkwardly and rubbing the back of his neck. "It's really cool to have someone paying me attention for a change.”

I felt a mixture of emotions. Mostly surprise but also a bit of joy and a bit of shame.

All that time, I thought Alfred considered me boring, odd and annoying. I never thought he would think of me as a good listener and treasure that.

By complete accident, I had done something right! That was a bit satisfying, but not completely so. My intentions, after all, weren’t the most honorable ones. I was just listening to Alfred to find out how to persuade him to sleep with me, and my conscience of this fact made me slightly ashamed of myself, considering how innocent his ‘thanks’ had been.

"You don’t have to thank me for that ..." I said very softly, hiding part of my face with my hand.

"I know, but I thought it would be good to do it," he rebutted, patting the top of my head.

I felt a strange warm wave of affection for him at that moment.

 

* * *

 

 

**_Case 36:_ **

_ Mona Bonnefoy (victim) -> Rich and beautiful young lady. She had one-side feelings for Alfred. She didn’t seem to know the other members of our pack well. Other people knew she was involved with Alfred, but they didn’t know the true nature of their relationship. _

_ To check: Did she have enemies? How did she meet Alfred? Why did she go to the Full Moon Celebration? _

_ Alfred (suspect) -> Last seen at the beginning of the Full Moon Celebration. For now, he has no alibi. He got drunk with a single glass and went to sleep. He woke up the next day near the cabin surrounded by police. He had no clothes on and there was blood on his body. He claims not being the one who invited Mona for the Full Moon Celebration. _

_ To check: Who was the last person to saw him? Were there any other details about his appearance that attracted attention? Were his clothes found? _

_ Hut (crime scene) -> Not investigated yet. It was a place known and used by the suspect. _

_ People to talk to: Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Gilbert, Frank, plus members of our pack who attended the Full Moon Celebration. _

These were the records I made that night in my personal notebook.

There was still a lot of work to be done, but things weren’t looking good for Alfred. There were no other suspects and he did not have an alibi. In addition, he had a connection with the scene of the crime and reasons to commit it. As much as I hated it, I had to concede that the police had actually arrested the most suspicious individual this time.

Deep down in my heart, I truly felt that Alfred wasn’t guilty but, sadly, feelings weren’t enough to prove his innocence. If feelings were evidence, the police could really arrest all the werewolves. After all, they really felt like we were all criminals.

... On second thought, their feelings  _ could _ be enough to put someone in jail, indeed. That happened a couple of times. Still, mine would never be enough to free someone. This was the world we lived in.

 

* * *

 

On that night, I went to sleep so exhausted that I fell into a deep sleep as soon as I lay down on my pillow. I woke up the next morning when the sun was already high in the sky. 

After eating my breakfast/lunch, I decided to go to the old hut in the woods. Before interviewing more people, before checking more information with the police, I had to see the crime scene. The more time passed, the more evidence could be lost. I hired a carriage again to take me to the fence that separated the forest and the city, and from there, I walked alone to my destiny, going deep into the orange autumnal forest, listening to the sound of crickets and the wind running through the leaves of the trees.

During my journey, I felt my mood gradually improve. The day was so nice and the weather was so pleasant. I began to get more optimistic, thinking that maybe the hut would have the evidence I needed to prove that Alfred was innocent… Yet, when I reached the hut, all this optimism suddenly shattered, as I came across a familiar figure protecting the place from visitors like me and just knew that things wouldn’t be as simple as I wished.

"Officer Brookwells," I said in a dry voice, staring into his eyes.

"Hello, Kirkland," he greeted me casually. "It's a very nice day today, isn’t it?"

The hunt was no longer protected by the same amount of guards than the previous day. Only officer Brookwells stood at the door. He was the only barrier between me and the crime scene. The problem is that he was a great and stubborn barrier. Let’s put things in this way: if I had to make a scale of the opinion of the members of the police force about me, I would put Gilbert on one extreme and officer Brookwells in another one.

"Yes, indeed. I assume the inspector has finished his investigation, yes?"

"For now, yes," he replied vaguely, drumming his fingers on the barrel of his gun.

I swallowed hard, noticing the tension in the air. We were both alone.

"I'd like to conduct my own investigation now," I informed him in a low, cautious voice.

"You can’t conduct an investigation without being accompanied by the inspector. The trial of this case hasn’t yet happened and you might contaminate the crime scene."

Impulsively, I opened my mouth to retort 'Yesterday you said I _ couldn’t _ investigate the crime scene with the inspector!', but, fortunately, I closed it in time. Such a confrontation would be like taking the first punch in a fight. I couldn’t risk it. We were far from the village. I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of crickets in the forest and no one but the crickets could hear me. Not even the sound of a gun’s shot could be heard by all forest.

"When will I be able to investigate the crime scene?" this was all I could ask.

"I don’t know. I'm just fulfilling my responsibilities."

It was a lie and we both knew it. We danced at the same pace to avoid bumping into each other. Officer Brookwells was apprehensive too. In his perspective, he was in the realm of a bunch of wild beasts and talking to one of them.

"I'll see this with your superiors, then," I informed him.

His blue gaze became colder and harsher. He carefully caressed the barrel of the gun.

“Well, go ahead,” he answered calmly.

Another failure - I thought at first. I was leaving the hut surroundings, feeling rather defeated, when I looked down and I saw the trampled ground, full of marks of what happened in the previous days, coming to a formidable realization: the hut might be the heart of the crime scene, but its surroundings were the lungs of what happened.

Immediately, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to identify the familiar scent of a human or werewolf. However, the remaining scent of the victim's internal organs was still the strongest one. The rotten, putrid smell practically burned my nostrils. I started to cough. God, that smell…. That smell wasn’t just blood ...  It was the smell of the entrails of a human, with all the meals they had eaten at that time. It was the smell of a crushed brain. The horrible stench of human insides…

"Why are coughing like that?! Are you communicating with someone?" the guard Brookwells asked suspiciously, raising the gun. The idea that my coughing crisis was a secret code for a werewolf somewhere could only be conceived by his stupid mind. At the time, it seemed so comical to me that I managed to contain my urge to vomit and recompose.

"No, I just ..." I wiped the corners of my mouth with my hand. "I got a little sick for a moment."

"Don’t joke around, Kirkland," he warned me.

I thought to myself that if I had to make a joke and be killed, hopefully, it would be a better joke than just coughing in front of him. 

Anyway, since I couldn’t resort to my nose, I had to appeal to my eyes. I started to check the ground, looking for clues. As expected, all evidence had been lost, thanks to the footprints of the various officers who passed in that area and my own footsteps. Still, something looked a bit odd. There was no blood in the ground around the hut and it looked like someone had thrown earth all over the grass.

"Did the suspect mess with the ground around this place?" I asked Brookwells.

“Uh?”

"The land near the hut is all turned upside down. The steps above it are recent and there is no visible blood on the ground," I pointed out, too focused on those details to think about who I was sharing them with. "Was the suspect who did this?"

"No, there was a bunch of nasty, red stains on the ground when we came here, so we decided to cover them with dirt," Brookwells replied with a grimace. "We didn’t want to step on them."

_ You bunch of morons! _

I could feel my body shaking with the urge to scream it in his face.

"Then... Do you remember the direction that the stains led to?"

"They went to the tree where the suspect was, obviously."

So I went to investigate the trees. If the scenario they had proposed was right, Alfred would have grown tired after the crime, transformed back into a human, gone to the tree and fallen asleep. That meant that there should be lots of fur and blood on the trail leading to there or in the tree itself, since Alfred very likely didn’t have a chance to wash himself after, supposedly, committing the crime. Also, who the hell would wash up and go back to sleep in a tree near the crime scene?

Fortunately, the police hadn’t mess with the ground in that place and I was able to check it properly. There were no scraps of clothing, neither fur there. Considering that turning into a wolf or back to human released a lot of furs, that meant that he had to have done it in the hut itself, otherwise there would be fur all over the ground. Yet, contradicting this, there were claw marks on one of the trees.

"Was this the tree the suspect was sleeping on?" I checked.

Brookwells shrugged, which I interpreted as a yes.

The pieces of the police story didn’t fit together. The evidence was contradicting itself. The absence of fur near the tree indicated that Alfred had turned back into a human in the hut and then, he came and slept under the tree. However, the presence of claws on the tree in which he was asleep suggested that he was still in wolf form when he had arrived there.

Then I remembered that, unlike wolf fur, claw marks were easy to produce by the police.

This thought made me shiver violently, and for the moment, I decided to ignore it.

I ended up finding a few drops of blood under the tree and decided to check for more of them. Now I was working on the hypothesis that whoever did that to Miss Bonnefoy, had left the cabin, still covered with fresh blood, stopped near a naked Alfred for a moment for whatever reason and then moved on.

Although the drops disappeared by a meter, they reappeared after that. They disappeared again, but they would come back a meter later. And so on. As I followed them, I noticed claw marks on the trees around me. As if a werewolf was running and pushing everything around him out of his way.

As I followed the trail, the droplets started to decrease in quantity, becoming more and more difficult to detect. I ended up losing track of them in the middle of the forest, in a place that had nothing of particular significance, except for the fact that if the suspect continued in that direction, he would reach the lake. Was this his destination? What had happened to him? Maybe the blood had simply dried on his body before he even reached the lake. Or maybe ... Well, maybe the police didn’t dare to plant evidence in an area that werewolves often went to.

I still wasn’t sure of what I was dealing with, but by then it was clear to me that Alfred was innocent. For some reason, someone was setting him up.

 

* * *

 

 

I visited Alfred again that night; I felt like I had to. I wanted the police to know that someone was checking on him. I also felt like bringing him a piece of meat pie that I brought on my way there.

This time, when I got to his cell, he had his hands on the bars, his eyes were glowing and his mouth was wide open, salivating a little.

"Did you bring meat?!" he asked euphorically.

He must have been hungry. In the past, due to my… less than commendable culinary skills, he always reacted with suspicion when I brought him food. 'Did you make it?' was his first question, usually. This time, I barely had time to show him the pie. He took it from my hand and devoured it in a single bite, very werewolf-like.

"Were you hungry?" I asked more for making conversation than anything. It was obvious that he was.

He nodded three times, rubbing his mouth with his arm to clean it.

"You have no idea of how hungry I was! They are only giving me water and bread! I bet you that in three days, you will only find my skeleton!"

"Don’t be overdramatic," I reprimanded him with a sigh. I guess I was trying, in my own way, to deny the reality. Deep down, I knew he wasn’t being dramatic. Werewolves needed meat in their diet far more than humans. If it wasn’t for all the weight Alfred had accumulated before his prison, it was possible he was much weaker by this point. I could already see his cheeks gradually losing its color.

"You always say that, Arthur," he complained, rolling his eyes. "I could have a sword stuck in my neck and you'd still say I'm having an overreaction."

"Well, you could have stuck your finger with a needle and still react as if there was a sword stuck in your neck," I retorted, folding my arms across my chest.

Alfred laughed a little. It was a very nice sound, which restored some of the energy I had lost that day.

“Damnit, Arthur." He shook his head. "I hoped you stopped being so funny," he said warmly.

If Alfred was an alpha, he would definitely have noticed a change in my scent. His smile always charmed me. I felt my heart race a little.

"You look ... surprisingly positive," I pointed out, leaving the part 'for a murder suspect' implied.

Alfred continued to smile while the rest of his expression revealed nuanced tiredness and sadness.

"I can’t deny that things are being difficult, but... it's good to know that I can count on you," he admitted, speaking in a slightly softer voice than usual. "You brought me clothes and food and is coming to visit me every day. You even brought news of my parents! Compared to when I arrived, not understanding anything of what was happening and having no perspective on how to deal with this situation, I feel like I'm in a better spot now. "

Alfred's gratitude for small things has always been a feature I enjoyed in him. When we dated, he was so, so overjoyed over every little gift or kind gesture that I made that I couldn’t help spoiling him. Even with the horrible way I ended things, he was still showing the same gratitude to me. He was always that kind of person. Alfred and I had changed over the last eight years but there was still an essence of the person I had dated inside him - the thought of this was quite comforting.

"Well, it's my job," I replied modestly with a small smile.

This answer, apparently, wasn’t the one Alfred wanted.

"I know," he replied in a cooler voice and his eyes stopped focusing on mine or in a specific point. "You always did everything for your work."

I felt an accusatory tone in the way he said it and my defenses rose.

"Don’t  _ you _ have something for which you would do anything?" I confronted his indirect accusation.

“Are you asking me this as a detective or as yourself?" Something in the way he said it, made me think I would get two different answers, according to my response.

I pondered a bit before saying,

“I'm asking as myself.”

Alfred was the one pondering this time. He looked like he was chewing a very bitter and old piece of the past.

"I don’t know. I like many things, but there is nothing that has my complete devotion. I love my family, my friends, my work, my pack and my hobbies, but there are none of these things that are above all others, you know? I never fully understood you, Arthur, but I think I understand you even less now." The corners of his mouth went down and his eyes became full of spite. "You wanted to be a lawyer, right? It was all that mattered to you. What are you doing as a private investigator?"

"I'm a werewolf, Alfred,” I answered with closed fists and many restrained emotions crawling under my skin. “How many cases do you think I've won in the human courts?”

“Ah.”

He understood immediately what I meant. Any werewolf would understand.

"You don’t need to tell me all this," I meant to say it angrily, but my voice shook, my sight blurred and I hugged my own body, so it almost looked like I was just begging him to stop. "I know I was naive, believing that having a diploma would be enough so I could work like any other lawyer. "

Upon hearing this, Alfred immediately looked guilty and worried.

"Artie, I'm sorry. I didn’t..."

I turned my back to his cell. Seeing his face made me feel like I could cry and could be weak in front of someone and I didn’t want that. I couldn’t allow it.

"No, you're right," I told him. I felt my words becoming heavy, demanding a physical effort to be carried by my tongue. "I was too ambitious. I've been lucky enough to be able to go to university ... "I took a deep breath, slowly calming down again. "It would be excessive if I could archive more than that."

"No, Artie! You’re wrong! I mean, I was wrong!” Alfred exclaimed, sounding even more nervous than I did. "Honestly…” he sighed deeply. “ As much as I wish I could say that you are just a selfish bastard or that you were naive and too ambitious… You’re not. You did something very important for us, werewolves, and you’re still doing a lot for us. I’m just being bitter, really.”

What? What he was doing now? Wasn’t he trying to make me feel bad over my mistakes? Why was he comforting me now?

_ I don’t care if you’re grumpy and stubborn. I don’t care if you are aggressively sexual and sarcastic. I don’t care if you aren’t a typical omega. I don’t care if everything I learned about relationships doesn’t apply to you. I actually like that about you. I like you. _

For some reason, this old memory, from so many years ago, came to my thoughts as if sprinkling them with sugar.

Alfred really was a soft and gentle person. Even when he was trying to hurt me, he was too good to go ahead with it. This was just who he was and this is why I… I…  

I turned back to him. Alfred still looked very anxious and his ears were down. He looked like a puppy in the rain. It was quite pitiful but also a little bit funny. I took advantage of his distraction to poke him hard right in the middle of his forehead.  

“Hey!”

“Revenge,” I smirked.

He looked like he wanted to complain, at first, but then, he ended up smiling back and, for a second, the world felt like a safe place again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! Thank you for your support in this new story! I hope that you're enjoying it so far and trying to solve the mystery yourselves!^_^
> 
> I would like to give my special thanks to Ixie, for her help with revising this chapter. Also, to Tovarich, TheMadHatter273, pentanic03, Baskerville2003 and all the guests for leaving kudos! And of course, thanks Tovarich, Liberty13roses, VivaDragnire, Ixie and Vin for leaving reviews on the last chapter! I already answered them!
> 
> If you enjoyed this new chapter, please let me know your thoughts about it!
> 
> Take care and have a lovely days, guys ~


	4. Witnesses of your story

After a few months of friendship with Alfred, I felt that we had gotten quite close. Our connection was no longer restricted to a certain time and place. We visited each other all the time and always went out together to different places. My parents started asking me about Alfred during breakfast and even suggested that I always took him with me wherever I went ‘for protection’. I didn’t want to have Alfred, or anyone, as my bodyguard, but we did start to go everywhere together. Sometimes he played around with my parents, saying ‘I’m here for my client, Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland!’.

Becoming closer to Alfred felt as natural as breathing and, little by little, my loneliness, which I had always thought to be natural of my character, began to be attenuated without me realizing it. Although I must say, while things were going so well in our friendship, in terms of seduction, I was failing miserably. 

I had almost no experience seducing someone. As an omega, I was used to being the one getting advances rather than making them. Therefore, I felt very timid and unable of saying anything that could at least suggest to Alfred that I was interested in him. I thought that maybe, when I got used to his presence, I would feel more confident but, needless to say, I was wrong about it. The closer I got to Alfred, the more I learnt about him, the more I got nervous about the possibility of being rejected by him if he ever realized my true intentions. 

To make matters worse, since Alfred assumed that no one would try to seduce him, he was bloody awful at noticing subtle indications that anyone (in other words, me) might be interested in him. 

Over time, I started getting impatient, so one night, I decided to make a bold move to change things around. I stole a bottle of wine from my father, put it in a bag, sneaked to Alfred's house and climbed the tree that led to his room, knocking on his window. Alfred practically jumped out of bed when he saw me. He was so easy to scare that it was almost funny.

"Artie, never do that again!" he scolded me in an angry whisper while opening the window for me. He was in his pajamas and his hair was adorably messy. "I thought you were a gho ... a thief!”

"Right, right. I brought you some wine." I patted my bag with a grin. "Does it serve as an apology?"

"Where did you get that?" he asked, surprised and excited. Alfred was a good kid, but he was also a teenager. He wanted to experiment with new things as much as I did.

"I stole from my father," I admitted with a proud grin while entering Alfred’s room. 

He frowned worriedly.

"Aren’t you going to get in trouble?"

"No, my father has several bottles of wine." I shook my hand, unconcerned. "He won’t notice that one is missing.”

“I’m guessing that you did that more than once?” I felt a bit of reprehension in his tone. 

I rolled my eyes and groaned. 

“Yes, officer.” 

"Shut up." he punched me lightly on the shoulder and chuckled. I felt a little warm in the place where he touched me. "Anyway, why did you decide to come to my room, in the middle of the night, to drink with me?"

I swallowed hard and started to shift the weight between my legs. I couldn’t tell him the whole story.

"I was thinking we could play a game," I replied as casually as I could.

"Oh, I love games! What game do you want to play?"

Great. A good reaction.

"... Do you know the game of the bottle?"

The game of the bottle was usually played between alphas. It was very simple. One alpha said ‘I doubt you can do this thing’ and the other alpha had to either do the thing immediately or drink a sip from the bottle. Generally, this game ended in a bunch of drunken alphas punching each other, but that was not in my plans for that night. I just wanted to drink enough to have a little courage to flirt with Alfred. In the worst case’s scenery, if he rejected me, I could always back down and say that I was just tipsy.

"Oh, I've never played it but it seems interesting! Do you want to start now?"

I nodded and we sat on the floor, putting the bottle between us. Alfred looked very excited. He was rubbing his palms with a huge smile on his face.

"Can I challenge you first?" He asked.

“Of course, go ahead.”

"I doubt you can imitate a chicken!" 

“What! That’s an embarrassing challenge!” I complained with a pout.

"Do it or drink it, Artie." He smirked at me and what the hell, that made him look immensely attractive.

I'm not proud to admit it, but yes. I imitated a chicken. I refused to be the first to back down in the game. 

Alfred laughed so loud that I was afraid he'd wake up his parents. He ended up having to muffle the sounds on his pillow. He was a mess when he finally finished laughing. His face was all red and had a few marks from the pillow.

"Oh, that was the best thing I've ever seen," he said, almost breathless.

"Okay, now it's my turn," I grumbled, trying to disguise my embarrassment. "I doubt you can serenade me."

Alfred's eyes grew wide and he hesitated for only a few seconds, before taking a sip of wine. I was slightly dissatisfied that I wouldn’t get to be serenaded by him.

"Come on, Alfred! It wasn’t even a difficult challenge!"

"Sorry! Maybe the wine will help a little with the next one." he sheepily apologized.

"Don’t drink too much wine," I warned, and I was being pretty serious about it. I didn’t want Alfred to get too drunk. That would completely ruin my plans for the night. 

"Yes, officer," he countered, returning my words from before. Urgh, what an irresistible prat.

We continued the game and I did my best to not give Alfred hard challenges, in order to prevent him from getting completely drunk. It worked well and, after ten rounds, he only took two small sips of the bottle. However, having little tolerance for drinks, this was enough to make it slightly altered. I learned that an Alfred with alcohol running in his blood was braver and bolder. Maybe even a little flirty. His eyes were far more fixed on me than usual, and they looked hotter and darker than usual.

I took half a bottle of wine and, like Alfred, was feeling the effects of the alcohol. My body was warm, I wanted to laugh at everything and, just as I planned, I was feeling more relaxed than usual. My courage grew high enough for me to lean my head on Alfred's shoulder and start playing with the buttons on his shirt.

"Are you tired?" He asked in a low, concerned voice. 

"No," I replied, closing my eyes. "I just like being able to stay like this."

He put my hair behind my ear and started caressing my cheek.

"You look adorable," he commented softly.

"You're so drunk." I just laughed.

"No, I ... Maybe I’m a little drunk, but I'm being honest!" he insisted. "I always think you're adorable!" his voice got a bit softer and high-pitched and he lowered his eyes. "I just find it hard to say that, usually."

I was curious about why he never told me that. Usually, he was very carefree at giving compliments to his friends. Did that mean that...?

Before I could entertain any hopes, Alfred hit me with the line, 

"I don’t want you to think I'm courting you! We are friends, after all, and I wouldn’t want to spoil that."

In my drunken state of mind, I didn’t took that very well. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. I felt a little bitter. I was putting so much effort into conquering his affections and Alfred was talking about us being than friends as if that would be a problem! The nerve of him!

"Well, I find you quite attractive and that doesn’t spoil our friendship, does it?" I ended up retorting in a bad mood.

Alfred's eyebrows jumped and an unexpected delighted smile appeared on his face.

"Attractive? Really?" he asked as if he could hardly believe it.

"Yes, indeed, Alfred ..." I grumbled. How dense could a person be… 

"Oh! I had no idea!" he said happily.

I wasn’t sure of how to feel at that moment. It was a good thing that Alfred wasn’t displeased by my admission of attraction for him, but, on the other hand, he didn’t seem to be taking it very seriously.

"Did you ever wanna kiss me or something?" he questioned me in a slightly mocking tone, poking my cheek.

"Yes," I admitted mildly grumpy.

"When? When?" as he said that, he brought his face closer to mine. His smile was annoyingly unaware. He looked just like a curious boy discovering the rainbow instead of someone who was driving me crazy. Still, he had an innocent side so maybe he was just that dense. I had no idea what he was really thinking about.

"Well, I want to kiss you now," I answered honestly. I was a bit drunk, horny and frustrated. I couldn’t care to measure my words.

It was only then that Alfred stopped taking everything as a great joke. He stopped smiling and looked away, concerned. I felt the seed of fear and rejection begin to sprout in my heart. I was about to resort to my excuse of ‘ops, I'm so drunk, what did I even say?’, when he murmured …

"To be honest, I've never kissed anyone ..."

That wasn’t exactly a 'no'. I swallowed hard, feeling my heart pounding. 

“... Neither have I." I revealed to him, trying to make him more comfortable. 

If I wanted to back up, that was the moment. If I left things like that, he probably wouldn’t suspect. However, I felt something within me compelling me to continue, to try, to do anything but give up. This was the great moment, the opportunity I had hoped for all these months! I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I let it vanish! That’s why I ended up adding after a few seconds of silence, 

"Wouldn’t it be nice to try it out? I trust you. That's why I would be more comfortable if my first experience was with you. "

Alfred neither laughed nor seemed averse to what I was proposing.

"I think I can understand what you're saying," he replied, seeming to examine my face as intensely as I was examining his.

We stared at each other for a long time. It may not have been so long, but heavens, it seemed long. I wondered if I should make the first move or say something because I wouldn’t be able to handle that tension any longer.

And then, he put his hands on my cheeks and stared at me, deep inside my eyes, very serious. I felt as if he were silently saying 'you can push me away if you want to'. His hands were large, warm and gentle. I really enjoyed that contact and didn’t want it to end. I put my hands over his, to keep them there, encouraging him to make a move. Alfred leaned over me, his lips ghosting gently over mine, before pressing them a little harder.

It was my first kiss, our first kiss.

"I liked that," Alfred said with a proud smile, bright eyes and red cheeks as we parted.

I was exultant and, frankly, almost incredulous that I had just kissed Alfred. I felt like I was floating. I wondered, was it really the alcohol causing this sensation on me? I had been drunk on one or two occasions but never experienced something similar before.

"I liked it too," I replied with a huge smile. 

Soon after saying this, I started laughing for no reason and Alfred ended up laughing with me. I think the two of us were still a little nervous and confused, but definitely excited about what had happened.

Remembering that moment, from the perspective of someone with more experience, I realize that the angle of our faces during the kiss had been a bit strange and that we didn’t know what to do, besides smashing our lips against each other. It was a very awkward kiss. Still, I found the experience of kissing someone, of kissing Alfred, interesting. His lips left a funny feeling on mine that I remembered vividly for the next few days. I wondered what it would be like to kiss Alfred again.

* * *

 

Getting back to Alfred's parents' house after all those years wasn’t a pleasant experience. I had very sweet memories of that place and it was hard to know that it would never be the same to me again. I could no longer take refuge from my worries on the Jones’s family couch and receive a cup of tea from Mrs. Jones to comfort me. After all, now I was the person who had broken her son's heart.

On my first visit after starting to investigate Alfred's case, I was aware that I was no longer welcome and did my best to be extremely brief. I simply asked Mr. Jones to pick up changes of clothes for his son, and I waited at the door, avoiding to speak with Mrs. Jones. I kept it simple.

On my second visit, I knew I couldn’t act the same way. Regardless of my feelings, I had an investigation to do. I had to question Mrs. Jones.

"Mrs. Jones, I came here because I wanted to ask some questions about Alfred.” I gulped. “For my investigation."

Without a word, she walked away from the door and let me in. Once I was inside her living room, she motioned for me to sit in a chair. I shook my head, but the pressure in her eyes made me relent. I sat down with my hands on my lap between my legs. My shoulders were tense and heavy as rocks.

Mrs. Jones had changed a lot in those years. She had more wrinkles, some white hair and looked, somehow, smaller than I remembered. Her attitude had changed as well. Her behaviour now was the opposite of the warm treatment I used to receive from her during my relationship with Alfred.

"What do you want to know?" she asked, sitting down in a chair in front of me.

I decided to not waste her time fumbling around with useless questions. 

"Is it true that Alfred was involved with Miss Bonnefoy?"

"Why are you asking me this?" Mrs. Jones confronted me. Her tone was calm but sharp. She was slightly defensive, I noticed. "Are you unable to believe that Alfred has moved on with his life and found someone other than you?”

“No, that’s really not...”

“Or perhaps, you got surprised by the fact that Alfred was able to conquer the heart of a lady so above you in every way?” she questioned me again, rather snidely.

That settled it. She was obviously not taking my questions professionally. She saw me as her son’s ex-lover, instead of the detective trying to clear up his case, and her mission was making me see what I had lost when I rejected him. How tiresome. 

"Ma'am, I don’t doubt Alfred’s abilities to find a good partner, but I'd be a bad detective if I didn’t ask questions like these."

I could see by her expression that, besides disliking my answer, she possibly hardly believed in it.

"For your information, Alfred has rejected that young lady," she explained in a surprisingly smug tone, tossing her long hair back. "She was very interested in him, but Alfred was too busy for romance. He is very popular, you know? The residents of this village ask for his help for everything. "

Again, I had the impression that she was trying to hurt me with that information about how amazing Alfred was and how fantastic his new partner was, but I was too busy trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle that was my case, to let myself be distracted.

"What is his job?"

"Technically, he's a fisherman, but people are very fond of asking him advice and having his help in conflict mediation. He is often sought by members of our community. "

"Counseling and conflict mediation... Wouldn’t that be Frank's role?" 

"Frank still needs a bit of maturity to take his father's place.” she sighed, crossing her arms over her chest. “People prefer to go to Alfred for advice. He's a lot more focused and responsible. Just don’t tell that to Frank, yes?"

Was that true? Maybe Mrs. Jones was exaggerating to increase her child's credit in front of me. It would be a rather pointless endeavor, considering that I was trying to get her son out of jail and I was already seeing him at his worst, but mothers are mothers. She might have seen this white lie as one of the few things she could do for Alfred in that situation.

However, ff that were true, it was amazing that Alfred had achieved so much influence in our pack, being a beta and especially being someone so calm and unpretentious. The lead of the pack was something passed down from generation to generation in Frank's family and I always felt that this system was a bit outdated. His family produced the biggest werewolves in our pack, yes, so what? There were more important things for a leader. Alfred's ability to mediate conflicts, empathize with others' feelings, and make people feel better were key to the group’s harmony. It was good to see that the members of the pack seemed to be opening their eyes to that.

"Mrs. Jones, speaking to Frank, your son mentioned that he talked to him about Miss Bonnefoy ... Can you tell me what you know about Frank’s involvement with this matter?”

"Hm, I think Frank tried to talk to her a few times," she recalled with her hand under her chin. "As far as I know, it didn’t work. The girl was too stubborn." Mrs. Jones remembered and then added in a slightly snobbish tone. "She probably knew she would be missing out on a great catch."

"Yeah, no doubt of it." my voice sounded accidentally flat. I noticed it and I coughed, trying to sound better when I asked, "Mrs. Jones, when was the last time you saw your son?"

"Right before the Full Moon Celebration. He was helping me prepare the food for the party. Around lunch, I let him leave before we finished his tasks so he could have some fun."

"When was the last time you saw miss Bonnefoy?"

"I am not sure. Maybe three days before the Full Moon Celebration? She came looking for Alfred and I told her that she wasn’t welcome in our house. "

"Do you know if Alfred had any contact with her on the day of the Celebration?"

“Of course not! Like I said, he kept helping me during the morning, before going to the party.”

Mothers were mothers. Her statement couldn’t be taken as a reliable alibi in court. Still, if anyone else had seen Alfred helping with the party's preparations, that might help prove that he didn’t have time to send a letter to miss Bonnefoy, calling her to the cabin where the crime happened. 

I started writing some notes down. If Alfred wasn’t the one who called miss Bonnefoy to the cabin, there were three possible scenarios to explain her claim to her parents that she would meet him.

 

  1. The killer used Alfred’s name with the intention to lure miss Bonnefoy.


  1. The killer’s main objective was to incriminate Alfred and the murder of miss Bonnefoy was just a part of a bigger scheme.


  1. Miss Mona received an anonymous letter, inviting her into the woods and assumed that Alfred was the one making this invitation. 



 

The first two scenarios were, in my view, the most unlikely. Alfred had no enemies. He was loved by all in our village and completely unknown in the human world. The third scenario seemed more plausible to me. The anonymous letter could have been sent by anyone. If that was the case, then any werewolf nearby the cabin could have been accused for the crime that happened that night - Alfred was unlucky that Miss Bonnefoy concluded that the letter was written by him.

* * *

 

As I finished my conversation with Mrs. Jones, I went to Frank’s office to talk to him and, as I saw him, I immediately realized that he was the same as ever. Childish, proud and simple-minded. Undeniably, he got taller and stronger, and he made a point of showing that to me. Still, I didn’t care for such details. Generally speaking, he was the same Frank to me. 

Oddly enough, it was comforting to see him being the same person he was in our teens days, no matter how annoying his personality was. On the last few days, I had to constantly face the passage of time and the consequences of my previous decisions and that was exhausting. It was a relief to see that some things never changed.

Frank received me with a hug. It was the first hug I received in a long time. I didn’t realize until then how much I missed physical affection. I was overcome by a strong emotion, hard to describe, and I felt tears forming in the corner of my eyes.

"Are you alright? Your scent seems a bit sad." Frank commented apprehensively. No, I wasn’t sad. He never properly interpreted my smells because instead of asking me about my feelings when he noticed a difference in my scent, he simply assumed their meanings and I was too lazy to correct him.

"I’m fine," I wiped my eyes quickly. "How are you?"

I asked that out of politeness and I was punished with a very long, detailed answer. Frank started talking extensively about everything he was doing with his life, what it was like to be the leader of our pack and about every single object in his office. I tried to interrupt him a few times and he just ignored me. It must have taken twenty minutes before he finally asked me how I was and gave me a chance to say something.

"I'm ..." I tried to find the right word to describe what I felt. "... busy. Listen, Frank, I have some questions to ask about Alfred's case."

At hearing this reminder of Alfred’s situation, he became slightly distraught and worried.  

“Of course. I will help with anything. Did you take his case? I didn’t think Alfred's parents would hire you considering what happened between you two.”

Urgh. Frank had no tact at all.

“Indeed, I was hired by someone else.”

"Really?" he arched a brow. "So, who...?"

 _Now_ he was asking me questions!

"Frank, I'd like to focus on the things I have to ask you."

“Oh, yeah! Of course, of course!” he exclaimed as if he just had learned how an interrogation worked. “Go ahead and ask me anything!”

“Do you know anything about the relationship between Alfred and the victim?”

“Obviously, I do. The leader of the pack needs to know about this kind of thing!” he announced with pride. “Listen, Kirkland, I know this is going to be shocking but you have to believe me… Miss Bonnefoy had one-sided feelings for Alfred. I know, it’s absurd, right? After all, Alfred is, well, Alfred and she was a rich lady of great beauty. And yet, that’s the sad truth. I think that’s a solid proof that no one can understand how the heart works.” 

Uh ... Somehow, even though they both had told the same story, the way they did it was drastically different. Frank was still Frank, after all. He always underestimated Alfred. 

"Frank, have you ever met miss Bonnefoy?"

"Yes, at Alfred's request, I talked to her a few times to advise her to move on from him. "

“And did that help?”

"No, of course not.” he sighed deeply. “Besides not having a good taste for men, she was incredibly stubborn. Alfred can probably confirm what I'm saying better than anyone else. You have no idea how much he tried to get rid of her. "

Apparently, miss Bonnefoy was a big problem in Alfred's life, which could be a good motivation for murder. If it were not for the physical evidence that Alfred could not be the culprit, I would be very suspicious of him.

"Did you happen to see Alfred on the day of the crime?"

"No, in the morning, I went into town to buy some things for the Celebration," he replied immediately. "I came back near lunchtime and helped with the rest of the preparations. Then, I went to the party, drank a lot and I went somewhere quiet to sleep. I don’t remember if I saw him or not.”

I wrote it all down and I was re-reading my notes to see if there was anything left to check when I felt the gentle weight of Frank’s hand on my shoulder. 

“Hey, Arthur, you don’t need to force yourself to be strong.” he smiled pitifully at me.“An omega doing such a stressful job. When you are feeling vulnerable, come and talk to me.”

I couldn’t smile back. I knew he was being kind in his own way. Still… I didn’t want to be talked to as if I was naturally fragile for being an omega.

“Frank, thank you for your concern but don’t underestimate me,” I stated, facing him with determination. “ I have experience in my field and I’m confident in my abilities.” 

As expected from him, he laughed a lot of what I said and quickly changed the subject, 

"Very well. Our little Arthur is looking quite mature! Anyway, if you need help in your case, please seek me immediately! I am at your disposal. After all, I am the leader of this pack. " 

* * *

 

I went back to the police station before nightfall. I was exhausted, but I knew there was no time to lose. My best chance of finding evidence to prove Alfred’s innocence was at the crime scene. I had to investigate it as quickly as possible.

"So you want to investigate the crime scene," the police chief rubbed his chin, synthesizing my fifteen-minute long request in a single line. 

"Yes, I must do it as soon as possible," I confirmed. I didn’t want to show how much I depended on that authorization, just how much it was generally needed.

“I don’t know about that, Kirkland.” he looked very unconvinced. “What if you compromise the evidence?”

Even being used to receiving unfair accusations and suspicious, despite helping the police in so many cases, that question made me deeply unnerved and my emotions started coming to the surface. I couldn’t take this behaviour when Alfred’s life was at risk.

"Sir, I have already helped this police station in countless cases. What makes you believe that ...? "I started to say, in a trembling, angry voice. 

"We know of your involvement with the suspect," he told me coldly.

I got very nauseous. My whole body tensed. I could hear my heart thumping in my ears.

"What do you mean?" I asked cautiously. I did not want to show my emotions and look vulnerable. That could be a bluff.

"At first, we didn’t want to believe it. That we’ve been working with a sodomite." he looked disgusted, glaring at me as if I was. “The only reason we allow you to remain free is because you're not really a man and we can’t apply the same laws to beasts and men. "

I clenched my fists so hard that I felt my blood stop circling at the tips of my fingers. My mouth twitched as if I'd bitten something bitter. I had to swallow all the things I wanted to say to him and protect myself with silence. 

"Do you understand your situation now, Kirkland?" Mr. Evans asked me, head held up with cold eyes, full of contempt. He stared at me as if I were lower than the ground. "You're in no position to ask me for favors."

Humans didn’t accept love between two men. It was one of the first discoveries I made when I lived among them. When I was studying their laws, I was surprised to see marriage being defined only as the union between a man and a woman and I asked one of my colleagues about it. He laughed mockingly and replied 'It seems simple enough for me, Kirkland! Can you even imagine if other sorts of unions were allowed? We would be closer to animals than humans!’. I chuckled uncomfortably and nodded. What else could I do? I remembered something I'd heard from Alfred once ... 'Are you really ready for what it means to live between humans, being a werewolf?’. For the first time, I truly understood what he meant. 

During all those years, living among humans, I didn’t try to obtain friends or a relationship. My fear of appearing even more different than I already was, of suffering the consequences of simply appearing to be a man who loved other men, made me isolate myself and endure my bitter loneliness. 

And now… I wouldn’t let my sacrifices being in vain.

"As you said, according to the human laws for werewolves, I have done nothing wrong, so I don’t know why I wouldn’t be able to ask you a favor, after having done so many for this precinct. I'm no longer involved with the suspect and I haven’t been involved with anyone for a very long time. If you really did investigate my love life, you should know that." I pointed to Mr. Evans, doing my best to contain myself and keep calm, reasonable. "Anyway, I'm not asking for a favor. I'm asking for the key to solving a crime. If I don’t find out the real culprit, the killer will remain on the loose. "

"You're so arrogant. We found the culprit. You're just looking for something that you could use to protect your lover."

My words, no matter how convincing, wouldn’t work against Mr. Evans suspicious of me. He wasn’t considering my argument, he was just judging me as an individual. There was no way I could win that discussion on my own merits.

I didn’t want to have to do this, but it was time to use my hidden advantage.

"Officer Evans..." I corrected my posture and crossed my arms behind my back, wanting to emanate a respectful but solemn image at the same time. "I was hired by the Bonnefoy family and they won’t be happy when I inform them of the limitations I'm going through to investigate this case. Please don’t make me have to talk to my clients to solve this problem."

The chief of police wasn’t expecting this news and was disarmed by it, losing his superiority aura and looking like a child caught doing something he shouldn’t.

"The Bonnefoy family hired _you_?" his eyes got wide in astonishment.

"Specifically, I was hired by Francis Bonnefoy, the victim’s older brother. I have his letter to me to confirm it. "I took the letter from my coat and handed it to him.

He read the letter quickly and I could see his expression changing from skepticism and confusion to panic and unrest. He realized that I wasn’t just representing myself, Alfred or other werewolves in that case. I was representing a rich and influential family of humans. If he interfered with my investigation, his problems would be far greater than losing the support of a private detective ostracized by society….  

It could be said that he wasn’t in a position to ask _me_ for favors.

"Kirkland, you're allowed to check out the crime scene." He cleared his throat and began to fumble around with a pack of papers as if he were looking for something to do. "I'll let my officers know this by next morning."

Well, finally!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! Yes, this story goes on and little by little, more things will be uncovered! As always, thank you for your support! I hope that you're enjoying the narrative so far and trying to solve the mystery yourselves!^_^
> 
> I would like to give my special thanks to Ixie, for her help with revising this chapter. She's an angel. Also, my thanks to Gwenylyn, ixie, AsH_animex2, Lunar_Iris, Teapot1923, p12a57f, SilentBlackKitten and all the guests for leaving kudos! And of course, thanks Vin, Tovarich, Ixie, Liberty13roses, VivaDragnire and Lunar_Iris for leaving reviews on the last chapter! I already answered them!
> 
> If you enjoyed this new chapter, please let me know your thoughts about it!
> 
> Take care and have a lovely days, guys ~

**Author's Note:**

> A new story always need feedback so that I know that you guys want more! Please let me know your thoughts about it!^^
> 
> You can make questions about this universe btw!


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